Morgan Carroll Makes Guns an Aurora Issue

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by: Colorado Pols

Sen. Morgan Carroll.

We don’t post all of the blast emails we get from political candidates, but we wanted to take a moment to highlight a very smart action alert sent out yesterday by Democratic CD-6 candidate Morgan Carroll, in response to President Barack Obama’s executive actions to tighten background checks for gun sales:

I remember the horrific day the Aurora movie theater mass shooting happened. My house was five minutes away from the theater itself. For me, that was it — enough was enough. [Pols emphasis]

With the help of Captain Mark Kelly — husband of Gabby Giffords — I fought hard to propose and eventually pass universal background checks on gun purchases in Colorado…

The moment to step up and speak louder and bolder about gun safety in our country comes today on the heels of President Obama’s executive action.

We’ve endured tragedy after tragedy, and we can’t just wave the white flag on gun violence.

In 2013, Sen. Carroll was a sponsor of House Bill 1229, the law requiring background checks for most transfers of guns in our state. That law on the books means Colorado already does more to require background checks than anything Obama ordered yesterday–or for that matter has the power to do without congressional action. The hard-fought passage of this law is a big reason why Colorado lawmakers were in attendance at the White House yesterday, including the two Colorado state senators who were ousted in gun lobby-organized recalls of 2013.

The political will to take on gun safety in Colorado in 2013 was in large part the result of an horrific mass shooting in July of 2012 at the Century Theater in Aurora. As Aurora’s state senator, and now a congressional candidate to represent the scene of one of the greatest tragedies in our state’s history, Carroll is in a unique position to show leadership.

There’s no question that the intense blowback from the gun lobby against the 2013 gun safety laws has frightened Democratic lawmakers here and elsewhere, much like right-wing activist Jon Caldara predicted it would. But in Aurora, we do not see the same risks for Democrats in taking up this issue that might exist elsewhere. This is an diverse urban district with a history of gun violence tragedies great and small.

By taking this issue out of the headlines and taking it to the local level–her own level as Aurora’s longtime state representative and senator–Carroll may turn the conventional wisdom on the “third rail” of guns on its head.

That would be a bad thing for Mike Coffman, whose party-line pro-gun rhetoric is not going over well as it is.

15 thoughts on “Morgan Carroll Makes Guns an Aurora Issue”

Moderatus says:

January 6, 2016 at 1:32 pm

Fools.

The president has launched his final year in office with what could be a major misfire, politically for his party and personally for his legacy. His much anticipated executive action on guns seems to be more of the same thing he’s been doing for seven years, but with some additional annoying frills. A spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, Jennifer Baker, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal asking, “This is it, really? This is what they’ve been hyping for how long now? This is the proposal they’ve spent seven years putting together? They’re not really doing anything.”

Meanwhile, anti-gun Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee, who served in Congress during Obama’s first term and helped pass Obamacare, is holding what might be called a “coattail event” today to announce his own “executive action” on guns, according to KING. That event will be held at a mental health center in Burien.

But Inslee, who supported Initiative 594 in 2014, may want to walk softly on this issue. A reader poll in theSeattle Times shows a 2-to-1 rejection of the president’s new actions on gun control. That newspaper’s editorial page has not been friendly to Second Amendment concerns.

Back in “the other Washington,” a similar unscientific poll is even more tilted against Obama’s announced actions. WFSB’s poll results this morning were running 3-to-1 against the president’s gun control scheme.

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1. DawnPatrol says:
  
  January 6, 2016 at 1:56 pm
  
  Bitch, please. Your "sources" are laughably corrupt and hopelessly biased.
  
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2. OrangeFree says:
  
  January 6, 2016 at 3:11 pm
  
  Anyone who posts unscientific reader polls as proof of anything has no business calling anyone a fool.
  
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3. Samuel L. Clemens says:
  
  January 8, 2016 at 7:28 am
  
  Followed the link to WFSB's poll and found most of the comments support the President's action – that in spite of the poll showing 21% are for and 79% are against.
  
  Add that – per some of the comments – some of the replies have been deleted, this makes the poll even more questionable…and thereby, your post.
  
  "Lies, damned lies, and statistics…"
  
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Moderatus says:

January 6, 2016 at 1:37 pm

In pursuit of what he called “unfinished business” — see legacy item — in his most recent radio address, the president spoke of letters he has received from parents, teachers and children on the issue to say he can’t “sit around and do nothing.”

All of which follows the left’s blueprint to first create a crisis, then offer the solution.

Unfortunately, the new Gallup Poll shows “guns/gun control” at the bottom of Americans’ most pressing concerns in 2015, ranking 19th out of 23 top problems facing the country, according to CNS News.

Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/01/04/new-gallup-poll-numbers-make-obamas-gun-control-push-laughable-290934?hvid=4oUG3v#ixzz3wUzZ8XII

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1. MichaelBowman says:
  
  January 6, 2016 at 1:58 pm
  
  I pretty sure the same percentage of Southeners perceived slavery as 'an issue' when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
  
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  1. FrankUnderwood says:
    
    January 6, 2016 at 2:38 pm
    
    Many of them still do……
    
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  2. BlueCat says:
    
    January 6, 2016 at 9:26 pm
    
    And what's with all those whiny Sandy Hook parents? Obviously only making a fuss to help Obama manufacture an issue. Jeesh. Do they think we're all idiots or what?
    
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2. DawnPatrol says:
  
  January 6, 2016 at 1:58 pm
  
  CNS News? bizpacreview? Why not the Wingnut Babbler, or the Cognitive Dissonance Gazette too?
  
  You really need to start upping your game. ou're not even trying anymore.
  
  Morgan Carroll’s gonna eat your lunch come November. Say goodbye to cowardly bird-brain Coffman!
  
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  1. Socialisticat says:
    
    January 6, 2016 at 2:43 pm
    
    Thanks, Dawn! I recently moved and totally forgot to update my address with the Wingnut Babbler. Can't tell where the UN's moving next without it!
    
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    1. Moderatus says:
      
      January 7, 2016 at 12:44 pm
      
      Right, but when this liberal blog cites Daily Kos, it's gospel. Heck, this is a liberal blog. Why should any conservative take what is posted here seriously? It's the same token.
      
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      1. Socialisticat says:
        
        January 7, 2016 at 1:24 pm
        
        Poor persecuted Moderatus.
        
        Here's why we mock your source. They post a poll on overall political priorities and show guns is low on the list. Obama idiot people like guns! But the same organization ran a poll in October entitled: Americans' Desire for Stricter Gun Laws Up Sharply, which shows "a distinct rise" in the number of Americans (from 47% to 55%) who want stricter laws governing firearm sales. As noted in another article by Gallup, American Public Opinion and Guns, while Americans seem doubtful that purchase restrictions will have a major impact on mass shootings, 86% favor universal background checks using a central database, and a referenced QPac poll says that 77% back disallowing sales to the folks on watch lists.
        
        We treat your links with contempt because the sites you reference lie, cheat, and steal tiny crumbs of data and pass them off as the definitive word on a subject. If Kos did that, I'd call them out, too. Of course, I'd then have to write a letter of apology to George Soros, asking for my leftist credentials not to be revoked, but them's the breaks.
        
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        Samuel L. Clemens says:
        
        January 8, 2016 at 7:29 am
        
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Gilpin Guy says:

January 6, 2016 at 5:22 pm

Gun Violence and Climate Change should be the policies that Democrats should want to discuss. These are the kind of issues that can and should motivate young people to get involved in politics like the Vietnam War did in the 60's.

Let Coffman explain his vision of a sustainable planet with peaceful public places and affordable health care to the electorate and compare his policy solutions with Carrolls. Let's talk policy solutions for these issues absolutely.

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dustpuppy says:

January 6, 2016 at 7:56 pm

I went to the Century theatre two months ago, for the first time ever. I was nervous as heck, but was immediately comforted by the fact that there was two uniformed officers present and keeping an eye. My son attended a birthday party there, and enjoyed it, and doesn't know about its sordid past, and won't share it with him until he is old enough.

I am planning to contact them to set up a movie-based birthday party for my son (his request!) so knowing what I saw recently, I'm comfortable with making my choice to do business with Century theatre in Aurora.

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